Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors 11

Alright, total change of course and it's not even a classic comic critique. No Ultimate, no Marvel, just DC and it's Lanterns.

    Emerald Warriors is one of three ongoing Green Lantern titles DC is putting out right now, the other two being Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. This is essentially a one shot, a self contained story as opposed to being part of a larger arc. The writer decided to pull back a little bit coming off of the "War of the Green Lanterns" event, which lasted a couple months and spanned all the books.

    So what we have here is a bit of good old fashioned spacecopperey starring my favorite Green/Red Lantern: Guy Gardner. Now Guy can be pretty polarizing to GL fans, some hate him because he's too much of a dick, while others love him because he's too much of a dick. I think he makes a great foil for when all 4 earth lanterns are together, because he contrasts their seriousness excellently. Now about the comic. Basic stuff, Guy is going on vacation to rest after war, when he's called to assist a ship of alien dignitaries. He grudgingly goes and helps out, kicks ass, doesn't even bother taking names, and wines and dines the alien princess aboard ship; par for the course for Guy. Then there's a twist. Read the comic to find out.

All in all, a fun entertaining read. Not exactly important if you're worried about story development, so if you're tight on cash you can skip it if you'd like. You'd be missing out on entertainment, but that's all.

Y: The Last Man

   Today I'm going to do a classic comic critique on one of my personal favorites: Y:The Last Man(henceforth to be referred to as YTLM). Set in the present day, YTLM focuses on a man in his 20s named Yorick Brown. Simply put, Yorick is the last man on earth. Due to reasons I won't spoil for the rest of you, every male creature on the planet died suddenly save for Yorick and his monkey ampersand(&). Y and & team up with 355, and agent of the Culper ring, a secret spy organization the reports directly to the president, and Dr. Mann, one of the planets leading biologists in order to protect and study Yorick. Yorick, not being content with living a secluded protected life, journeys to find his girlfriend Beth, who was in the Australian outback at the time of the event.

   YTLM is in my opinion one of the greatest comics of all time. The story and characterization are superb. All of the characters manage to always feel "real." They act realistically, and they are what propel the story, instead of the characters bending to serve the plot like what happens all too often in modern comics, televison, etc. The dialogue is interesting and always fitting to the characters, after a while, you could probably read just the bubbles and know who is saying what line. The story also takes place over 10 years and 60 issues, giving time for substantial character growth.

   The art, however, is..adequate. I'm not criticizing it at all, but it's simply nothing spectacular. It fills it's role perfectly, but this is simply not a graphics driven story. The most important function the art serves is showing us the post male world. I know many may thing the world would function alright without men, and yes, women are perfectly capable of running the show. But to simply remove all men in an instant, most politicians and CEOs in the blink of an eye, you can understand how the world breaks down. This is why YTLM excels as a comic not a novel. A novel would require descriptions and visualization of this altered world, whereas a comic can simply show you, panel to panel as the story progresses.

   So, in closing, read this comic. I give it my highest recommendation.